his mother said, turning to him, “why don’t you show Cara around while we find her something to eat? Let her catch her breath before joining us inside.”
Rafe looked to his father, who nodded in spite of his earlier warning to remain clear of the walls for the time being. Both of them knew the importance of that warning, and also that Rafe would take it seriously.
“Cara, what do you say to a little more fresh air?” Rafe asked. “Just to get the feel of the place.”
She nodded. And as though she was merely any invited guest instead of the daughter of two Were legends and potentially as dangerous as both of them, everyone else went into the house, leaving Cara and him in the driveway, alone.
* * *
She had never seen a house as large as the one in front of her. Actually, Cara had never seen any house besides the small one she had grown up in. Nevertheless, she sensed a certain familiarity with the Landau mansion that didn’t make it seem as foreign as she had expected. There were plenty of ghosts here, something she was intimately familiar with.
“How long?” she finally said to Rafe, looking up at the house. “How long were they here?”
The fact that he was keeping up fairly well with her line of thinking was reflected in his reply. “Your father was treated here after being gravely injured. My grandmother took care of him and helped him to heal. Your mother was also a guest at the time and helped keep watch over him. This was before your parents had bonded.”
“My mother was a guest?”
“She was here with her father. Your grandfather. It was also Rosalind’s first time away from her home, and she skipped the warnings about remaining inside, and breached the wall. She must have found your father in the park, in a fight with the fanged hordes. It was her call that brought other Weres to your father’s aid before it was too late.”
Cara eyed the wall in the distance and the trees topping it. “That park?”
“The same one,” Rafe said.
“So close?”
“The vampires had infiltrated a section of the park that’s still some distance away.” Rafe was eyeing her intently. “Does being near to it disturb you?”
Cara shook her head.
“No one mentioned those things to you?” he asked.
“My parents don’t speak about the past,” she replied.
“Not even to explain why things are the way they are?”
She turned to look at Rafe. Getting to the heart of her parents’ past had been a burning desire for as long as she could remember, and Rafe was telling her things she had long waited to hear, but how much of what he knew was the truth, and how much of it was either hearsay or exaggeration?
Rafe probably hadn’t been born when her father and mother had been here, and neither had she. To Rafe, the past was just tales. To her, the real story of what had happened and who she was had become the main puzzle of her life.
“Vampires,” she said. “Vampires made my father a ghost.”
“It took a hell of a lot of them to do so, I’ve heard,” Rafe agreed. “Colton was one of the strongest Lycans around in those days, and also a damn good cop.”
“Cop?” Cara echoed.
He nodded. “Your father was a cop, like my mother. They protected Miami’s population from bad things that dwelled both in and out of the shadows.”
“Until those shadows gained strength,” Cara noted.
When Rafe smiled, she was taken aback. There was no humor in anything that had been said, yet his smile was spontaneous and sat as easily with Rafe as his wolfishness.
He said, “We’ve both sprung from some pretty good genes. My mother was a badass, too, I hear. She’s actually pretty formidable even now.”
His smile dissolved into a more serious expression. “How did you know that vampire would be after me? I’m asking you because I’m wondering if maybe you purposefully gave me a trail to follow that took me away from her tonight. Could that be right, Cara? You lured me out of my apartment in time to prevent those fangs from reaching my neck?”
When she broke eye contact, Rafe seemed to read into it. “Well, then I doubly owe you, don’t I.” he said. “And I’m not going to ask how you managed it, because whatever you did worked.”
She let that go. Had to. Rafe was looking at her differently now—more warily. Her earlier show of tricks might have scared him. Either that, or he was perplexed by what seemed to be an overly complex plan.
She could read in his expression that he had more to say on the subject. Instead, he changed tack. “We can walk in the grass. In the evening, and this far inland, it’s the coolest place around.”
“Where are the others? Your packmates?” she asked, wanting more of her parents’ story but not ready to ask. What Rafe had already told her was food for thought, and better than any dinner the Landaus could have served up. Her parents had both stayed here, in this house, and some of these Weres had fought beside them.
“The others will be waiting to be called,” he said.
“Will they come tonight?”
“A few of them, especially because of the vamp sighting. They’ll keep a close watch on the park. You won’t have to meet more of them until tomorrow.”
So, she had been wrong about being a freak show for this pack. There was no crowd. She wasn’t going to be the main event for tonight. Rafe’s immediate family members and the Were who had accompanied the alpha were the only wolves present at the moment. She could breathe easier, and almost relax.
Maybe not too much relaxation, though. Because there was a new scent in the air, and a sense that someone on the other side of the wall was silently calling her name.
A chill reached Rafe as he watched Cara turn toward the section of stone wall not far from where they stood in a way that made it obvious she sensed something he didn’t.
After years of having to protect herself, Cara was probably a master of the art of self-preservation. He’d hate for it to be another bloodsucker out there, though. His grandfather’s pack had culled vampire-nest numbers years ago. As far as he knew, there hadn’t been a vamp sighting near here since he was a kid.
Rafe maintained his neutral expression while keeping a cautious eye on Cara. The electrical current she radiated eased after he took a few deep breaths, testing the air the way most Weres did when their inner fur was ruffled by a disturbance. Her frozen stance had produced waves of anxiety in Rafe that made his muscles twitch.
Reluctantly, he tore his focus from her to check out the wall. Cara took a step toward it. Though it was only one small step, Rafe sensed that she wasn’t going to be chained by any rules governing
